In June, two weeks after I returned from Nigeria, I got a message that another child had died from lead poisoning -the 11th in the same family. I could picture the scene: the child starts convulsing; his parents rush him two hours over barely passable terrain on the back of a motorbike to the nearest town for medical treatment. By the time they reach the clinic, a temporary ward specifically for lead poisoning set up in the wake of the epidemic, it is too late, and another young life has been taken by this preventable tragedy.
It’s hard to find sadder places in Nigeria than those that have suffered attacks by Boko Haram, the underground fundamentalist Islamic organization. Christians are fearful of attending church. Muslims, who also face attacks by Boko Haram, express concern that government security forces indiscriminately hunting down the group’s members consider their entire community to be the enemy. As one Muslim civic activist in this northeastern Nigerian city put it: “People don’t know who to be more afraid of — Boko Haram or the police.”
On February 28, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will decide whether corporations will be exempted from a crucial law that allows foreign victims of serious human rights abuses to sue them in US courts for civil damages. Any decision that lets corporations off the hook would be a major blow to justice and contrary to the global move toward more corporate accountability.
Libya's human rights crisis shined a much-needed spotlight on the relationship between universities and their more problematic funders. In this case, the London School of Economics (LSE) agreed to take about $2.4 million from the foundation controlled by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi. LSE is not alone.
Lead poisoning has killed more than 400 children in the state of Zamfara in the past six months. The tragedy unfolding in Zamfara is not a simple act of nature. Rather, it’s the latest testament to the Nigerian government’s failure to make the health of its citizens a priority.
It's the easy relationships between corrupt officials and their US business partners that really should attract scrutiny. Banks, lawyers, real estate agents and others have made hefty profits off their partnerships with some of the world's biggest looters and most repressive politicians.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) this past weekend in his new role as the UN Secretary-General's special envoy. The DRC has been a quagmire for envoys. Mr Obasanjo and his team must be wondering how on earth to achieve or measure success. We at Human Rights Watch hope that Mr. Obasanjo will achieve more than his predecessors, so we would like to offer some suggestions.
When Gordon Brown met Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua in London this week, improving the security of energy supplies from the Niger Delta was high on the agenda. Unless there is a determined effort to address the root problem of political and financial corruption, the violence in the Niger Delta will continue to have a disastrous impact on energy security – and on the lives of ordinary Nigerians.
At the upcoming Group of Eight summit, leaders of the world's richest countries will reaffirm their desire to promote democracy and development on the world's poorest continent. But at the same time, they risk undermining those ideals by welcoming Nigeria's fraudulently elected president into their midst as a partner. Unless the G8 countries use the occasion of the summit to speak out on Nigeria, they risk doing real damage to their own goals in Nigeria and across the continent.
On February 28, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will decide whether corporations will be exempted from a crucial law that allows foreign victims of serious human rights abuses to sue them in US courts for civil damages. Any decision that lets corporations off the hook would be a major blow to justice and contrary to the global move toward more corporate accountability.